Chlorine Bleach
by the sixth turk
Summary: Rufus finally convinced Reno to further his education. Chaos ensues in the university dorms, including but not limited to strange people in black coats who pop in unexpectedly and a psychologist that's actually a purple elephant plushie. AU, crack.
1. Chapter 1

"Name?" The secretary raised her eyebrow in obvious disdain.

"Reno, yo." The redhead slouched with his weight on one leg, shirt untucked and goggles pushed up on his forehead. He had no idea why the old lady had such a problem with his appearance.

Sighing, she tapped at her keyboard. "Do you have a last name?"

Reno shrugged. "Don't know. Turks don't get one, I guess."

The elderly secretary visibly composed herself. "What name did you write on the…oh, never mind. I'll do a picture ID search."

The redhead smiled to himself. Annoying university faculty was so much _fun!_

Finally, she turned the computer screen towards him. "That is you, is it not?"

Reno craned his head to bring the picture into focus. Spiky red hair, green eyes, odd markings on the cheeks, slightly malevolent expression… "Nope. Not me, yo."

"Young man, I have no time for your mischief. Here," and the secretary shoved a key across the desk. "I suggest you stop trying to fool me and find your dorm room. Good day." She set about her work with a furious frown, pushing her plastic-rimmed glasses up on her craggy nose.

"Got it, yo." Reno shuffled out of the carpeted office, then turned around and came back. "Sorry. Forgot something, yo." He extended his hand across the desk. "Pleasure to meet you."

The secretary actually smiled as she reached up to shake Reno's hand. At least, until the static electricity he'd been building up on his way out made her hair stand up on end.

"I'm good now, yo," said Reno as he exited for the second time.

x-x-x

Fifteen minutes later, Reno flopped onto the bed in his room, wrinkling his nose as he looked around. The gray carpet was stained in several places. A tiny kitchen was visible through a wooden sliding door, and another door opened onto a bathroom that could barely hold a toilet and a sink. Threadbare brown plaid curtains hung lopsidedly over a barred window. The two metal frame beds were crammed together against the wall in the living space, leaving just enough clearance for the closet door to open without hitting the well-used wooden desk in the corner.

"Room, my fat aunt Winifred," said Reno. "This is a glorified prison cell. Henceforth," and he grinned, tossing the dictionary back into his bag, "it shall be known as…" His thoughts were interrupted as another student sauntered through the door.

"How about the World that Never Was? Or maybe Hollow Bastion."

"I refuse to name this closet something that sounds like it's from a video game," said Reno.

The other shrugged. "Your choice."

Reno, lying on his back, sat up suddenly and poked his finger towards the newcomer, who was pinning posters on the drab green walls. "Who said you could poke holes in my sardine can, yo?"

"Quite simply put, I have partial rights to this…living space," said the other, not bothering to turn around. "I'm your roommate."

Reno gaped. "You're not serious, yo!"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"You can't be my roommate, yo. You're too weird."

"How so?"

"You're wearing some totally creepy black coat with the hood pulled down to your nose and carrying circle thingies that look dangerously pointy, yo. Oh, and you just set the carpet on fire."

His roommate looked down. "Oops." He stomped on the flames. "Sorry."

Reno glared at him. The other decided that it would be wise to exit if he wished to continue existing. The door shut behind him, and Reno was left blessedly alone.

After a furtive glance into the hallway confirmed that there was no one around, the Turk knelt on the floor and pulled his battered suitcase out from under the bed. Unzipping it, he rummaged around in the main compartment until he found what he was after.

Reno placed the fuzzy purple elephant plushie reverently on top of the hard mattress, being careful to keep the stuffing from falling out. It gazed back at him with one button eye and one drawn on with marker.

"Mr. Snufflebottom, I've got a problem, yo," he began. "Why…"

There came a noise from behind him, As Reno whipped around, his roommate appeared in a swirling dark cloud, dragging a black suitcase and a pink-flowered duffel bag. The cloud faded behind him as he stepped towards his bed. Quickly, Reno jumped onto the bed and placed himself strategically in front of Mr. Snufflebottom. "Nice bag, yo," he said sarcastically, indicating the duffel.

"Oh, it's not mine," said his roommate, dumping the bag unceremoniously onto the bed. "I had to borrow one from Marluxia."

"Ah," said Reno, leaning back against the headboard and hoping that the incriminating plushie psychologist was hidden from view. Abruptly, he sat upright again as he realized what had just happened. "Wait a minute, yo! Normal people don't pop into rooms without using a door!" He peered carefully at his roommate. "Who are you, yo?"

The other threw back his hood, revealing spiky red hair, green eyes, facial tattoos, and a slightly sinister grin. "The name's Axel," he said. "Got it memorized?"

"Ah, duh, um, well…" Reno, for once, couldn't think of anything to say.

"I'm a Nobody," said Axel, as if that would explain everything. He turned his attention to the luggage sitting on his bed and began to empty their contents. First to emerge was a set of pink sheets, a feather pillow, and a coordinating rose-print quilt. "Also borrowed from Marluxia," said Axel.

Reno finally found his voice. "Aren't they a little…unmanly?"

Axel shrugged. "I'm not the one who talks to purple elephants."

Gritting his teeth, Reno got off the bed, cradling Mr. Snufflebottom carefully in his arms. "I'm going for…a walk."

"Suit yourself," came the reply.

Reno restrained himself from slamming the door and had not even gone two steps before a spear thunked into the wood behind him. Seconds later, an extremely long sword embedded itself on his other side. Reno dropped Mr. Snufflebottom and stood quivering between the two weapons, wondering how Rufus had ever managed to talk him into furthering his education. And then he began to hear voices.

"I say you threw off my aim!"

"Your aim? You don't have any concept of the word. Hence Xigbar's eye patch and Saix's forehead scar."

"Those were accidents, I swear!"

"Ah. Am I to take it that the numerous holes in the walls, the untimely death of three Organization members, and the kidnapping of small children without souls were also accidents, then?"

"I can explain…"

"Please do."

Reno heard a crackling sound from behind him. When he got up the courage to turn around, Axel was standing there.

"All right," said the Nobody. "Very funny. Painting a bull's-eye on my door and then using it for target practice."

A black cloud and a swirling mirage of green appeared in front of Axel, who was now leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Two figures shimmered into existence.

"Merely a small act of revenge," said Sephiroth, striding up to the door and wrenching Masamune out of the wood. "Xaldin was quite angry when he discovered that you washed his coat with chlorine bleach."

Axel looked at Xaldin. "Yes, I could see why that might have been a little problem." The other Nobody's coat, instead of being intimidating black, was now a shade of pasty gray. Axel patted his hands in the air. "Now, now, Xaldin. There's no need to go on a stabbity rampage. Calm down…" He ducked as another spear went flying through the air.

Reno began to seriously consider moving to another universe.


	2. Chapter 2

_This chapter was co-written with Elvengirl-10_

x-x-x

Reno pushed open the door into his room and wearily flopped onto the bed, dumping his schoolbag next to him. It hit the floor with a thump, immediately causing the wood planks to sag beneath its weight.

A week had officially passed since the redheaded Turk had entered residence, and it had been a week of chaos, disorientation, near death experiences, and introductions. To all who lived in the residence building, everything was very, very new. Reno stared up at the interesting pattern of splatter stains on the ceiling, wishing he had a Sharpie so he could at least connect the dots while he thought.

Having lived alone for so long, sharing a room was new to Reno. He could not live in his nest of organized chaos, or create a living space for the crud god, despite the fact that a small pile was starting to accumulate at the foot of his bed. He was afraid of getting his stuff singed, especially Mr. Snufflebottom, who had been through enough already. He absentmindedly stroked his purple elephant, not noticing that by doing so, he was divesting the psychologist of more fuzz.

Axel was all right as far as roommates went. He had similar living habits to Reno, and the two of them shared a common interest in badmouthing their bosses. Reno even managed to forgive him for a few of his more annoying habits when Axel produced a Playstation 2; wonder of all wonders, it had not previously belonged to Marluxia. Reno smiled as he remembered one evening he and Axel had spent hunched in front of their 6-inch television.

"_So, what should we play tonight?" Axel asked. Reno shrugged, riffling through the stack of games in the corner. He stopped when he came to the bottom of the pile._

"_Might as well just play this one again, yo," he said, popping the disc into the machine and watching the screen warm up. "You know what?" Reno mused as he leaned back against the bed. "They should make more video games. Really interesting RPGs, with lots of action, magic, and strange characters."_

_Axel looked at him. "Any video game that had you in it would be strange enough for me."_

_"Likewise," said Reno. "I can just see you running around with a little blonde girl. Or doing something stupid, like turning traitor on some evil organization to help the naïve young hero."_

Reno rolled over onto his stomach and rested his chin on the pillow. Yes, he supposed, Axel wasn't a bad person. At the same time, though, Reno still couldn't get used to the musty burn smell that had settled into the small dorm. Axel's tendency to light things on fire with little warning was very annoying. Reno swore the smoke detectors were broken. And the redhead didn't even want to think about Axel's strange ability to pop into rooms through dimension doors. Often, it got to the point where he was afraid to change into his pajamas at night for fear that his roommate would appear without warning and see Reno in teddy-bear boxers.

Just then, Reno heard the telltale crackle of a dimension door. Quickly, he sat up and shoved Mr. Snufflebottom under the pillow. Axel was quite familiar with the plushie by now, but Reno had no interest in seeing his precious elephant go up in accidental flames. By this time, the typical black dimension cloud was forming in the center of the room. But it was not Axel that stepped through.

"If I've told him once, I've told him a thousand times. He can't just take…" The black-coated stranger began stripping the sheets off of Axel's rumpled bed, stopping suddenly when he noticed Reno watching him. "These are mine."

Reno swallowed a giggle. "Marluxia?"

"Nice. Now, do you know where Axel put my duffel? It's the one with…"

"…the pink flowers. I know. In the shower, yo."

"The shower?"

Reno shrugged. "There wasn't room for it under the bed, yo." The pink-haired Nobody stomped off towards the bathroom, emerging seconds later with the sopping bag.

"You'd think the idiot would at least take it out of the shower before he turned on the water!" Marluxia was still fuming as he dragged his pilfered belongings back out through another dimension door.

Reno shook his head, flopping back on the pillow. Belatedly, he remembered Mr. Snufflebottom and pulled him out from underneath. Yes, Axel had strange habits to go along with his strange friends. But there were others in the residence that were even odder. Mr. Snufflebottom got to hear a lot about them.

First there was Sephiroth, the tall, silver-haired male whom Reno was certain he'd pissed off in a past life. Sephiroth seemed to have it in for Reno, just as Xaldin, Sephiroth's roommate, seemed to have it in for Axel. Of course, it couldn't be because Reno and Axel took whatever opportunity they could to in some way bother them.

At the same time, Xaldin seemed to be an okay guy, if he wasn't in a bad mood, or trying to stab you. Reno and Axel's door had a very interesting scratch pattern, due to the fact that Xaldin's coat had never fully recovered from its ordeal. The two redheads were fine with that, though. They were still waiting to see the results of the itching powder discreetly inserted into Sephiroth's shampoo.

Then there was Yuffie Kisiragi, who had kleptomaniac tendencies. Reno learned rather quickly to search Yuffie's room whenever his iPod, watch, or other valuable trinkets (Mr. Snufflebottom) went missing. Aerith Gainsborough, Yuffie's roommate, was always willing to help search for the missing items. Other than that, Reno liked the hyperactive ninja, and often included her in any plans that he came up with to cause trouble.

Reno did manage to find enjoyment in tormenting Cloud Strife, the quiet spikey-blond a few rooms down. Whether it was playing pranks or outright teasing, Reno used Cloud to vent his stress. It was much safer than tormenting Sephiroth. Just an hour ago, Reno had sauntered into his room and teased him for pasting pictures of children all over his walls. Cloud had vehemently protested that they were orphans that he helped take care of, and that he was most certainly not a stalker.

It was interesting that someone like Cloud would have someone like Demyx for a roommate. Demyx, the musician with a mullet. Reno was often awakened by early-morning sitar practice sessions. Sure, the music was good, but the Turk wondered why the Nobody absolutely had to practice at 4:30 in the morning. Surely 10:00 was just as good. So what if he had to go to classes at that time?

Never mind the fact that the thin dorm walls did nothing to block anything above the decibel level of normal breathing. Although it was amusing to listen to the sounds emanating from various rooms. Most often, Sephiroth and Xaldin were arguing about the intricacies of removing people's appendages in alphabetical order. Yuffie was tossing balled-up socks against the wall while Aerith was listening to her iPod and singing along out of tune. Demyx was complaining that Aerith was misusing the key of C-sharp minor, and Cloud was silently playing with a rubber band in the darkest corner of his room.

Reno could hear glass shattering down the hall and figured that Yuffie had gone fangirl over something or other. He stretched his leg off the bed and pushed the door shut with his foot. If this was what his floor of the residence building was like, he swore never to venture to the lower levels.

Done with his mental recap of the week, Reno glared at his backpack. It sat primly in its sagging nest of floorboards. The redhead picked it up and cast an appraising glance at the floor. He would end up paying an awkward visit to the room below him if this kept up.

With a sigh, Reno sat gingerly on the 2.5-legged stool, checking to make sure that the pile of textbooks holding up the third leg hadn't shifted. He spread his binder open on the tiny desk. One look at the homework list there caused him to slap the cover shut. It was time to turn on the Playstation 2.


	3. Chapter 3

Reno was not in a good mood. It was only two days into the next week and already the stack of conveniently forgotten assignments was more then even the crud god's shrine could handle.

Then, of course, there was the little matter of Axel's lack of blankets. It wouldn't have been a problem, except that it was snowing outside, and the warped window frames of the residence building let in all the cold air. The boilers didn't work that well, either (some said that a phantom had sabotaged them last winter, but Reno didn't believe in ghost stories…yet). Which meant that Axel was reduced to either shivering, as Reno vehemently protested the use of fire as an alternative heat source, or stealing the Turk's quilt. He chose the second option.

This left Reno with no blanket at all, exposing his teddy-bear boxers to the world. So, he'd done the only thing he could – steal Cloud's comforter. After all, Reno was a scrawny little fellow and needed his warmth. This, of course, left poor Cloud shivering in the cold. So he took Demyx's quilt (after the embarrassing episode with the "children", he most certainly was not going to give Reno any more ammunition and ask the musician if they could share the bedcovers).

Thus, Demyx was forced to "borrow" Yuffie's fuzzy afghan. It was too short for him, and so he also took a pair of the ninja's tall socks to wear at night. The fact that they were a nauseating shade of green didn't bother him in the least.

Of course, then Yuffie managed to hijack Aerith's duvet, but the Cetra had been expecting it and had already acquired Xaldin's bedspread. Which left the grumpy Nobody with no choice but to threaten Sephiroth at spear point until the General consented to hand over his comforter.

As a result, Sephiroth looked like a strange alien the next morning. His skin was blue, his hair had gone white with frost, and he kept mumbling something that sounded like, "Chocobos eat spiked moogle pudding in roasted socks." No one was quite sure what to do with him until Aerith plugged in her hair dryer and began to thaw him out. Finally, he turned his natural shade of ice-white, dripping water on the floor as he stomped off down the hall.

Reno was scribbling on the wall with an orange crayon and talking to Mr. Snufflebottom about the questionable sentience of dust bunnies when Sephiroth attacked his door. The Turk ran five steps to the far side of the room. "What _is_ it with you people and my door, yo?!" he complained.

"No one apprehends my bedcovers and remains alive to tell about their heinous experience!" Sephiroth growled. "You began the progression of thefts that directly affected my person. Therefore, I shall recover my lost honor by exacting horrible deeds of revenge upon you."

The only thing Reno actually understood was "horrible deeds of revenge". But that was enough to spur him into action. Within thirty seconds, he had managed to push the desk and chair against the door. Quickly, the Turk retrieved his blankets, threw them on top of Cloud's comforter, and shoved Axel's metal-framed bed to rest against the desk.

"Blame it on Axel, yo!" he yelled through the door. "He stole my blanket! What was I supposed do?" The only answer was the sound of Masamune gouging another hole in the wood.

Reno threw up his hands. "Of all the things they could have banned in this school, they picked cell phones, yo! Not guns or swords or stealing or using strange powers to appear in people's rooms – cell phones!" He cast an appraising glance at the steadily growing hole in the door and decided it might be wise to lock himself in the bathroom. Scooping up Mr. Snufflebottom and his orange crayon, Reno beat a hasty retreat away to the relative safety of the shower stall.

Twenty minutes later, he was still there, beginning to get cramps in his legs from standing half-crouched in the tiny space. He'd written out his Last Will and Testament on the wall with a combination of soap and crayon, leaving all his belongings to Mr. Snufflebottom. Reno could hear Sephiroth growing increasingly louder and figured that the General was just about finished cutting through the furniture blocking the path between him and his object of ire.

Abruptly, over the sound of wrenching wood and Sephiroth's endless stream of invectives, came a crackling sound that Reno was all too familiar with. The Turk rolled his eyes, but consoled himself with the thought that nobody could be as bad as Marluxia.

A tall man with yellow eyes and spiky silver hair materialized in the bathroom. More precisely, in the toilet.

"A thousand hearts for my indignity!" he spluttered, climbing out of the bowl and straightening imperiously in the tiny space. A puddle formed beneath him as water dripped from the hem of his black coat.

"Axel! You are…" He peered more closely at Reno, who was slowly backing out of the shower towards the door. Sephiroth and Masamune were looking friendlier by the second. "What have you done to your hair?!"

The strange man stepped in front of the door, and Reno clambered up onto the counter, trying to stay as far away as possible. He accidentally hit the cold water tap as he crawled over the sink, soaking the back of his pants. At least, he hoped it was only water – he'd never been quite so frightened in his life.

"Would you believe me if I said I'm not Axel, yo?" Reno asked, his voice wavering embarrassingly.

"Actually, yes." The stranger glared significantly at Mr. Snufflebottom. "Even Axel would never lower himself enough to consort with…that."

Reno's eyes narrowed. _No one_ was allowed to insult his poor elephant. It was like turning off the sun, telling the world to spin backwards, or Yuffie suddenly managing to overcome her kleptomaniac tendencies. He opened his mouth to reply with something appropriately scathing, but the black-coated figure was already summoning another dimension door.

"If you happen upon Axel, you will inform him that he is to contact his Superior. Immediately."

"The Superior?"

"That is correct. Perhaps it would be to your benefit in what pathetic existence you possess if you learned to listen more adequately." The Organization Leader stepped into the dimension door

"Whatever you say. _Mansex."_

The Turk was thankful that the portal closed before anything more dangerous than a bellow of rage could emerge.

However, there was still the matter of Sephiroth's little destructive rampage. Actually, the redhead was more concerned about the very long, shiny, sharp, _pointy…shiny! Shiny, shiny, shiny_…Reno shook his head. The…sword. The one that would slice through the pitiful bathroom door in approximately 2.0734859 seconds.

"Mr. Snufflebottoooooo_oooooom_!" Reno wailed. The door fell in two pieces to the floor with an earsplitting crash and Sephiroth appeared.

Abruptly, Axel appeared. "What are you doing talking to that stupid elephant? Move!" He pushed Reno into the swirling black cloud he'd arrived in, tossing Mr. Snufflebottom through as an afterthought. And not a moment too soon. As the portal closed behind Axel, he could hear Sephiroth promising to inflict several kinds of bodily harm upon Reno.

x-x-x

Seconds later, the two redheads stepped back into existence. Well, Axel stepped. Reno was too busy holding his stomach and turning a peculiar shade of green to be overly coordinated. Such was the reason why he stumbled headlong into the wall.

"Promise me…" he wheezed, weaving drunkenly all over the hallway, "…never…to do…that…again, yo."

Axel shrugged. "Done. Oh, and by the way, you owe me 3000 munny."

"3000 what?"

"Munny." Axel slapped himself on the forehead, momentarily lighting his hair on fire. "Sorry. Gil, right?" He scrunched his forehead. "Let's see…conversion rate is currently at a ratio of three to one…multiply by 26, divide by 19.372…you owe me 9728 gil."

"9728 gil?!? For what?!?" Reno squawked.

"You ripped my Gundam Seed poster when you moved my bed in front of the door to be destroyed by Mr. Happy."

Reno rolled his eyes. "It's a piece of paper, yo. Pieces of paper, even ones with pretty pictures, are not worth 9728 gil."

"That's what you think," said Axel. "That pretty piece of paper is…was… autographed by Rau le Creuset."

"Come on! Rau le Creuset isn't even a real person, yo!"

"Yes, he is."

"No, he isn't."

"Is too!

"Is not!"

"Yuh-_huh_!"

"Nuh-_uh_!"

The conversation was rapidly degenerating to the maturity level of an average two-year-old when Axel introduced a new twist to the monotony.

"By the way, you also owe me 7500 gil for saving your sorry bottom. With twenty-percent service charges and also an extra 3000 for rescuing your fuzzball, of course."

Reno decided he rather favored simplistic answers. "Nuh-_uh_!"

Just then, the lights flickered (but without the typical cheesy music to provide a creepy atmosphere).

"I've been meaning to ask you," said Reno, after he was finished running around in hysterical circles, yelling 'EARTHQUAKE!' "Where did you put us with that little…" he waggled his fingers," …portal, yo?"

Axel looked around at the scorches on the floor, the scratch marks on the walls, and the holes in the ceiling. "I actually have no idea," he said.

Reno threw up his hands in frustration. "You don't know where we are?! That's the worst thing I've heard in this entire Jenova-spawned day, yo!"

"Who?"

"Never mind," Reno sighed. A sly grin came over his face. "That reminds me. Mans…ahem. Xemnas says to tell you hello."

Axel groaned. "Brilliant."

"Actually, he wants to talk to you." The Turk dropped his voice to a whiny imitation of the Superior's. "Immediately!"

Despite himself, the Nobody chortled into his hand.

Reno backed away, afraid that Axel would start spewing indiscriminate flame any second. "I think I have a map of the res building somewhere in here…" He began rummaging through his pockets.

Two minutes later, he had produced a wad of chewed gum, a pair of headphones, a sewing kit (in case Mr. Snufflebottom lost any of his various appendages), two gil ("I'll take those as a down payment," said Axel), a spare set of goggles, and a sheet of paper from ShinRa Corporation labeled "Bar Tabs to be Paid"…but no map.

"Yuffie…" he growled.

Meanwhile, Axel was pacing down the hall. His voice floated back to Reno. "Judging by the way the ceiling has a heavy concentration of bag-sized protrusions, I'd say we're in one of the lower levels."

Reno nodded, trying to appear as if he understood everything that Axel had just said.

"Actually," the Nobody continued, "going by the amount of dust in the air, we're probably on the first floor, pretty close to the boiler room."

Reno groaned. That he understood. He had a sinking feeling that soon he would find out why no one ever went to the lower floors.

"Hey!" said Axel. "It's not my fault! Your dimension doors probably wouldn't go where you wanted them to, either, if you had to produce one in two seconds! I was about to be _impaled!_"

The Turk sniffed indignantly and folded his arms tightly across his chest, tapping his foot and staring at the ceiling.

Axel sighed. "Since we're down here anyway, want to go investigate those rumors of a phantom sabotaging the boilers?"

Even from a distance, Reno could see a mischievous gleam in his roommate's eyes. He opened his mouth to protest and realized that he would be summarily mocked for refusing. "Sure, yo!" he said, hoping that he sounded suitably enthusiastic. Clutching Mr. Snufflebottom a little tighter, Reno followed Axel down the hall.

x-x-x

When they finally reached the boiler room doors (far too soon, in Reno's opinion), his knees were trembling so violently that a faint "_clack clack clack_" was echoing off the walls. It wasn't that he was scared of finding a ghost…well, maybe he was. A little bit. Maybe a lot. He cleared his throat to hide his nervousness.

"So," Reno said, his voice squeaking and betraying his attempts to pretend that he wasn't frightened out of his mind. "How do you plan on getting in, yo?" Axel reached past him and turned the knob. The door swung open with a scraping noise that sent chills down Reno's spine.

"It's not hard," said Axel. "Usually people learn to open doors as soon as they learn to walk. Although I suppose you're still learning that, too." He gestured for Reno to go first. The Turk walked tentatively into the dark.

_BANG!_

"Like I said," Axel quipped. "Still learning how to walk."

"Not my fault, yo! It's darker than the inside of Cloud's head in here! How do you expect me to do anything when I can't…"

_BANG!_

"…see where I'm going, yo."

"Easy," said Axel. He snapped his fingers, and a small flame leapt from his hand.

"Well, of course it's easy for you!" Reno spluttered. His clothes had turned gray from the dust that now coated him from head to toe.

Axel looked at him speculatively. "Perhaps I should lead the way. Might stop the walls from jumping out to get you."

Reno glared.

x-x-x

Moving through the labyrinth of pipes and rusty metal boilers revealed by Axel's makeshift torch, they could hear skittering noises echoing off the concrete around them.

"Rats?" Reno asked.

Axel shrugged indifferently. "Probably. But don't worry." His teeth glinted in the firelight as he grinned ferally. "They come too close and my pyromaniac nature will be revealed in a blaze of glory."

"Just warn me before you torch anything, yo."

Mr. Snufflebottom had not survived for years to be mistaken for a rat and summarily burnt to a crisp.

_THUMP!_

"Axel!" Reno stopped suddenly.

"What?" Axel turned around and came within a centimeter of breaking his nose on Reno's. He hastily backed behind the nearest boiler.

"Did you hear something?"

"_No!_" The Nobody was understandably snappish. After all, his good looks had been in jeopardy.

_THUMP!_

"Okay. Now I hear something. Are you running into walls again?"

Reno walked around the side of the boiler. "What kind of idiot do…" He was cut short as he hit his forehead on a pipe directly above him.

"Augh!" he cried, rubbing at the bruise that was already starting to form. "Auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!"

Axel scratched his own head in contemplation. "I could have sworn I heard an echo just then."

Suddenly a shadow detached from the boiler beside Axel's.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" It was hard to tell who yelled louder, the stranger or Reno.

Axel inspected his fingernails. "Somehow I'm not surprised. Nice to see you, Saix."


	4. Chapter 4

That evening, Reno decided he should do laundry. After all, his clothes were still horribly dirty from their little excursion to the lower levels. Normally, it wouldn't have bothered him, but the only other pair of clothes he owned had gone missing and not even a thorough search of Yuffie's belongings could reveal any trace of where they might have gone.

So he turned on the water, closed the shower door, and tossed in an open bottle of expired bubble bath. It was only after he'd stripped down to his boxers (plain white this time) and thrown his clothes over the door as well that Reno realized there was no way to turn off the shower from the outside. He watched in stupefied shock as the water level slowly crept up towards the top of the door. The latch clicked ominously, and Reno leaned heavily against the glass to keep the water from bursting out.

A cracking noise came from somewhere behind him. He looked underneath his armpit and saw a thin web of fractures slowly spreading from the door handle. Reno had time to roll his eyes before the glass shattered and a huge wave of bubbles, dirty water, and soggy clothes washed over him.

"Augh!" he cried, suddenly remembering that he'd left Mr. Snufflebottom sitting cozily in the crud god's designated stack of papers. On the floor. Reno half-leapt, half-swam through the water to the bed, snatching his precious elephant out of the maelstrom.

At least the carpet was clean now. Reno had always thought that it was _supposed_ to be gray. It turned out instead to be a shade of hideous orange. The Turk had no desire to find out what had caused the color change. Or how long it had been since the health inspector's last little visit. He was more concerned about Mr. Snufflebottom, who was beginning to smell of old fish. A mound of bubbles perched on his head, and one of his legs was missing.

Reno splashed frantically around the room, noticing absentmindedly that the floor seemed a lot squishier than normal, searching for the lost appendage. He finally found it bobbing merrily under the bed in a soup of soggy paper. And when he went to attach it again, he realized that he had no idea where his sewing kit was.

"I'm sorry, yo!" he entreated over and over as he re-affixed Mr. Snufflebottom's limb with judicious application of Scotch tape. The elephant looked mournfully at him, green patches of mildew beginning to pop out on his fuzz.

This was when Axel made his entry, immediately finding himself in knee-deep water that smelled of wet paper and old socks.

"Wouldn't it be great if Larxene decided to pop in right about now!" he grinned. Then he noticed Reno sitting on the bed.

The Turk looked up listlessly, dropping what appeared to be a makeshift fishing rod. And then he suddenly realized that he was wearing wet white boxers. Letting out a squawk of chagrin, Reno snatched at his blanket and draped it strategically over his lower body.

By this time, Axel was paying no attention. He was entirely too occupied with creatively vocalizing his rage over the popping, shorting-out Playstation 2. He turned to Reno.

"You owe me 25, 493 gil for another PS2."

Reno waved his hand wearily. "Put it on my tab, yo."

Axel, now barefoot and holding up the hem of his coat, crossed to the desk and opened up his notebook. With great precision, he placed a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses on his nose and began to neatly jot down several numbers. Finally, he put down the pen.

"Well?" said Reno.

"You owe me every house you'll ever own, every car you'll ever buy, and the birthrights of any children you'll ever have."

"Why did I ask, yo?"

"Oh, and that's without the 20 percent service charges," said Axel.

Reno groaned.

"Now," said Axel. "I'm not going to ask how all this water got in here."

"Good."

"Just out of curiosity, though…how _did_ you manage to flood our room with three feet of water?"

Reno grinned weakly. "The shower's the only thing that's actually big enough to hold that much before something breaks, yo."

Axel nodded. He was now struggling with the closet door. Finally, he got it open and dragged out the small vacuum cleaner stored there. Thankfully, Marluxia hadn't thought to take _that_ back yet.

"Reno, get your head out of the water," Axel ordered. The Turk was lying upside down on the bed with his arms sticking up in the air.

"Why, yo?" Reno wrapped the blanket more tightly around his scrawny legs.

"I'm about to plug in the vacuum cleaner, and I'm also assuming that you don't want to fry the remainder of your brain cells."

Reno scrambled upright and perched in the center of the bed.

"Actually," said Axel, "I have a better idea." He summoned a dimension door and disappeared.

"Sure, yo!" Reno whined. "Leave _me_ to clean it all up."

Abruptly, another cloud deposited Axel back into the room. "You made the mess. And you should be thankful that I'm not adding cleanup to your debt."

He quirked an eyebrow. "I digress."

Axel waved a hand to the person stepping out of the same cloud. The man was tall, with several scars, an eyepatch, and silver streaks in his black ponytail. Before Reno could say anything (or at least protest that he wasn't dressed for company) he disappeared again. Axel dove for the other bed and landed headfirst in the middle.

"Now," he said. "Watch."

A hand appeared, plugged in the vacuum, and maneuvered the hose to suck up the water on the floor.

"Handy, is it not?" said Axel. "Warping space is Xiggy's specialty. Although he's almost as good at warping the minds of small, spiky-haired children."

"Now, do you think that's polite? Shutting me down like that." Xigbar reappeared and patted Axel on the head. Immediately, he was forced to pull out a Band-Aid and apply it to his bleeding palm. "Be a good boy, now." A crackling noise indicated his departure.

Reno slid off the bed. The floor, although it squished and bubbled when he walked on the carpeted areas, was no longer flooded.

"Anyway," said Axel. "I was actually going to tell you something before you decided to play housewife."

Reno looked up, dropping the bedskirt as he abandoned his search for a needle and thread. "Is it something I want to hear, yo?"

The Nobody stretched out on his bed, studying the back of his hand. "That's for you to decide."

"Fine. Spill it."

"Halloween is tomorrow."

"That's right, yo! Why didn't I remember?" Reno leaped off the floor and snatched a half-completed essay from the desk. He turned it over and prepared to scribble on the back (it had been due three weeks ago, so he figured it was safe to use it as an evil plan generator).

"You could have reminded me _sooner_, yo!" he said, looking up at Axel. "Uh, what are you doing?"

The Nobody unceremoniously dumped a large stack of papers and textbooks in front of Reno. "You didn't let me finish. We also have two midterms tomorrow. So study."

"But…"

"STUDY! Or you'll fail Art History _and _English Lit."

"But…"

"If you don't pass those classes, you'll lose your residence privileges and I'll share a room with Mr. Snufflebottom while you huddle in a cardboard box outside."

Reno whisked the pile of papers out of Axel's hands.

"And another thing…"

"What?!" Reno snapped.

Axel held out his spare coat. "Please. Wear this. The sight of you in soggy white boxers would scare even Ansem."

"Thanks a lot, yo." Reno shuffled over to the desk and plopped onto the stool with such force that the pile of books holding up the third leg collapsed. He re-stacked them, muttering and cursing under his breath, and sat down much more carefully.

A while later, he was still hunched over the desk, eyes propped open with his fingers.

"The…artistic…movement after…Art…Noveau was…" he mumbled, in a daze from the effort of actually studying for once in his life.

Axel lounged on the bed reading Harry Potter. A neat stack of textbooks sat next to him on the floor, a tidily written essay outline resting on top. Giving a satisfied nod, he re-crossed his ankles and turned the page.

A dimension door crackled. Axel looked up. Reno, far too busy expounding the Victorian notion of duty, did not.

Xemnas stepped cautiously into the room. Once he had reassured himself that the toilet was nowhere near, he let the cloud disappear.

"Axel…" he started, and interrupted himself when he noticed the desk. More precisely, when he noticed Reno sitting there, in Axel's spare coat, with the hood pulled over his flaming red hair.

"Why didn't you _tell_ me you'd recruited a new member?!?" he thundered. Unperturbed, Axel resumed reading.

Another dimension door appeared in the room. Saix stepped through.

"I _told_ you he was up to something," he said.

Axel's eyes narrowed as he slowly lowered his book. Glaring pitchforks at Saix, he affected a sickly sweet voice. "How fortunate I am to be graced with your presence, Saix. Did you run out of small children to torment?"

The other Nobody turned a furious shade of red. Xemnas forcibly restrained him before Saix could enter a Berserker rage and do something silly (like destroy the building).

Addressing Axel: "We shall return later with your accomplice," said Xemnas. Two strides carried him to the desk. A wave of his hand opened a dimension door. With the other hand, he pushed Reno through. He stepped through after the Turk. Mr. Snufflebottom dropped to the floor by the bed.

Saix summoned his own portal and disappeared, not deigning to give any sort of farewell. Mr. Snufflebottom was swept off the floor and flung around the edges of the cloud. When it disappeared, he fell to the floor in a jumble of purple fuzz, mildew, and stuffing.

Axel dropped his book and leaped off the bed. One look at the mess told the Nobody that Mr. Snufflebottom wouldn't be looking like an elephant anytime soon.

"Great!" he said. "Now what do I tell Reno?"


	5. Chapter 5

When Reno stepped out of the dimension door, he was only mildly relieved to find himself somewhere other than the first floor of the residence. However, he barely had any time to look around before losing his last three meals all over the shiny white floor.

Xemnas wrinkled his nose. "A Nobody who can't handle travel through dimensions. I have never seen such a case." Gingerly, he stepped away from the mess and called loudly for someone to come clean it up.

Zexion shuffled into the room, dragging a dirty mop and wearing a decidedly dour expression. Xemnas pointed to the soiled floor.

"But it's Lexaeus' duty on the job chart," the normally silent Nobody protested. One look at the Superior's slowly lowering eyebrows caused him to hide behind his fringe of hair and scrub meekly at the floor. Xemnas nodded in exasperated approval and turned to Reno.

"The Organization shall have 13 members once more!" he intoned. Almost as an aside, he added, "Ever since that child friend of Axel's deserted us, fortune has not looked kindly upon me."

Reno grinned beneath the hood. "Axel has child friends, too, yo?" _He and Cloud should start a club. Preferably _not_ in my room._

"Never mind that. What are you called?"

"Uh…usually something along the lines of _idiot_ or _nitwit_. Sometimes _imbecile_, if Elena's in a really bad mood, yo."

Xemnas sighed. "I can most certainly tell that you've been associating with Axel." Taking a deep breath, he rephrased the question. "What is your name?"

"Reno, yo."

"Your Other must have had strange parentage to produce such a title," mused Xemnas.

"You could say that," said Reno. _As if Heidegger and Scarlet really counted in that regard, anyway._

The Superior sat down on a small rounded disc set into the floor. It slowly rose in front of Reno until the Turk was forced to crane his head upwards. Xemnas looked down at him, assuming a regal pose and thrusting his index finger into the air.

"Your name shall be Reno," and here Xemnas curled his lip in distaste, "no more." His words were punctuated by the rapid poking of the same finger towards the ceiling. "Instead, you shall be known as…"

He stopped, frowning, and pulled out a piece of paper to begin scribbling down anagrams. Finally, Xemnas looked at Reno again (after ripping several holes in the paper by crossing names off the list).

"How about you call me Reno, yo?" Reno said.

"Absolutely unthinkable! Any member of Organization XIII must have an 'x' in their name. Is that not correct, Zexion?"

The other Nobody, still wiping up the mess on the floor, dropped the mop and produced his lexicon. "Rule three-thousand-oh-seventy-one, subsection ten-three-four, article twenty-six, line seventeen: All Nobodies are to be referred to with the proper nomenclature, most specifically by the addition of an 'x' to the anagram of their Somebody's name."

"Thank you. Here," said Xemnas, crumpling the paper and dropping it on Reno's head. "Please choose an anagram."

The Turk looked at the paper. "This one here," he said. And grinned. "I'd like to see you try to pronounce it whenever you call for me."

Xemnas sighed. "Very well. Dismissed." With a wave of his hand, he was gone. Zexion, who had finally given up hope of the floor ever being perfectly white again, also summoned a dimension door and disappeared. Reno was left alone.

"Wonderful, yo," he said. "Now what?"

A cloud of black appeared in front of him. Axel stepped through. "Hurry!" he said, gesturing urgently to the portal. "If they find out that you're not a Nobody, we join Mr. Snufflebottom in untimely death." Abruptly, he clapped his hand over his mouth. He hadn't meant to tell Reno.

The Turk needed no further encouragement to jump through the dimension door. Axel followed, hoping that no one had seen him.

x-x-x

Back in the safety of their room, Reno spread the multiple pieces of his elephant out on the bed. Axel looked at his roommate, not quite sure what to say. Finally the Turk turned to face him.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Reno asked heatedly.

"What?" Axel was bewildered. He'd never seen his roommate really and truly angry before.

"I mean Xemnas popping in and dragging me off somewhere, and then I come back and Mr. Snufflebottom's been conveniently destroyed, yo!"

"Xemnas dragging you off somewhere was no joke. Better expect a lot of visits from Organization members…he thinks you're destined to be our newest member. And Mr. Snufflebottom had a…how do I put this?…a close encounter with Saix's dimension door. Which is why he's in…well, his, uh…you know…condition."

Reno scowled.

"Listen," said Axel. "Why don't we ask Aerith if she can sew him back up, and then go play some Halloween tricks on everyone while they're down at the costume party?

At first he was afraid that the Turk might just decide to sit on the bed and listen to opera all night. But then Reno scraped Mr. Snufflebottom's remains into his arms and stood up. "I could go for that, yo."

He carefully walked to Aerith's room. Axel could hear him entreating the Cetra to reassemble his niece's elephant, because it was her _favorite _plushie, and Uncle Reno was the _only_ one she could trust with the repairs, and after all, Aerith wouldn't want to make a sweet little girl _cry_, would she? The Nobody smiled to himself, thinking how much it was like Reno to deny that the elephant in question was, in fact, his own.

Half an hour later, Reno bopped back into the room with a newly revived Mr. Snufflebottom. The elephant looked much the same, right down to the single button eye. He was, however, sporting several new patches, including a bright yellow one ("Yuffie donated one of her socks," said Reno) and his left front leg dangled at least two inches lower than the rest. In spite of all this, the Turk was beaming with child-like elation. Axel couldn't bear to mention that clutching the psychologist so tightly was liable to result in a few burst seams.

"All right, yo!" said Reno, stashing the elephant carefully in a wooden box under the bed. He pulled the list of victims from his pocket, while Axel assembled the assortment of items necessary to carry out their plans for the evening.

"Let's go," he said.

x-x-x

_Stage I: Put cement mix in Cloud's hair gel._

"Axel," Reno said.

"What?"

"I think we've got a little problem, yo. This bucket of cement mix is kinda rock hard."

Axel looked at the contents of the pail. With a shrug, he stashed it in Cloud's shower and held out his hand expectantly. Reno raised his eyebrow.

"Gum, please."

Reno pulled a wad out of his pocket ("You can keep that coat now," said Axel) and handed it to his roommate. The Nobody carefully stuffed it into the open bottle of gel. Immediately, the acidic hair product began to eat away at the gum, and soon dissolved it all.

"Perfect," said Axel. "His hair will be sticky, sweet, and pink."

"Beware the fangirls that'll be storming his door tomorrow, yo," said Reno.

x-x-x

_Stage II: Restring Demyx's sitar._

"Instructions," Reno read aloud. "Unscrew Peg 1. Uncoil string at Point A while pressing Point B, as indicated by diagram. Remove Part AA from complete assemblage and…"

"Push what from where? Start over!" said Axel. "These Organization instruction manuals are completely _useless_!"

After three repetitions of this, they finally managed to remove all the strings and put them back on in different slots. Axel struck a test chord. The sound was reminiscent of a cat in heat brushing against a power cord that supplied electricity to the entirety of Midgar.

"Yup," Reno said, after his ears quit ringing. "That works, yo."

x-x-x

_Stage III: Change the lyrics on Aerith's iPod._

"You're sure that she always looks at the lyrics when she's singing?" Axel asked.

"Positive, yo," said Reno. He had the iPod plugged into Yuffie's computer and was presently occupied with rewriting the words for all 3921.5 songs.

Axel looked over his shoulder. "Gotta like that. Now put something in about Demyx being tone-deaf."

"Got it," mumbled Reno. "And something about Cloud liking small children."

Thirteen minutes later, the Turk updated the iPod and unplugged it, setting it carefully back on top of the water glass where it had been before.

"Can't wait to hear Demyx's reaction to this," Reno grinned.

x-x-x

_Stage IV: Pull the laces out of Yuffie's boots and crochet a sweater._

"I can't crochet, yo!" Reno said. "What is that, anyway?"

Axel crouched on the floor and began tying knots in the laces. Immediately, he had to jump up again, running back and forth across the room just to pull the ends through each time. Reno grabbed the other lace and began to do the same.

"So what?" said Axel, puffing slightly as he raced to the other wall. "This works just as well."

"Remember to douse them in water when we're done, yo."

x-x-x

_Stage V: Put hair-removal cream on Sephiroth's hairbrush._

"This is not going to work," Axel complained, squishing the sticky white cream in between the bristles. "It's so _obvious_."

Reno reached over and swiped a fingerful. With a flourish, he deposited it on the eyebrow comb sitting in its holder by the sink. "Even if the stuff doesn't work the way it's supposed to, we can always use the contents of his beauty cabinet as blackmail," he said, wiping his hands on Sephiroth's pajamas.

Axel agreed.

x-x-x

_Stage VI: Superglue the zipper of Xaldin's coat._

"Thank goodness he actually decided to wear a costume tonight!" said Axel, depositing his fifth empty tube of glue in the trash.

Reno wobbled around the room. "Powerful, yo, is the superglue. Stop now, you should, before into a wall I…"

_BANG!_

Axel decided not to mention Reno's sudden lapse into Yoda-speak, and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. When he returned, the Turk had recovered and was trying to force open the zipper.

"Nope," he said. "That's not going to open for anything less than the apocalypse, yo."

x-x-x

Eventually, the two redheads could hear the others coming up the stairs. Nonchalantly, Axel and Reno sauntered back to their room and shut the door.

The Turk went to take a quick shower while Axel removed several volumes of manga, an empty noodle cup, and a fork off the bed and crawled under the covers.

A few minutes later, Reno leapt onto his bed from the doorway of the bathroom, spraying water and bubbles everywhere. He reached over to the desk to grab the TV remote.

"Get some sleep," Axel said, burying his head under the pillow. "We're both going to need it when chaos ensues tomorrow."

Reno thought for a moment, then switched off the light and curled up with his elephant.

_I've got to quit listening to Axel. He makes too much sense._


	6. Chapter 6

When Axel came up the stairs to the tenth floor of the residence, eerie silence greeted him. He checked his watch. _7:30._ Usually the noise level was enough to knock holes in the walls. The redhead entered the hallway and quietly used his boot to prod open the nearest door. The sight was appalling.

Yuffie was laying with her back on a piece of plywood, which was perched on top of a ladder, methodically scrawling on the ceiling with a purple marker. The floor beneath her was covered with sheets of paper and discarded chocolate bar wrappers.

Before Axel could say anything, the ninja turned her head to face him. "Don't ask," she growled.

He did anyway. "Something wrong with using paper to write out study notes?"

Yuffie promptly threw a textbook at him. Axel ducked and it hit the goldfish bowl sitting on the desk instead.

"If I have to study, I'm doing it my way! Now get out - you piss me off any more and it'll cost you."

Axel waited until he was out the door before he said, "Maybe you should leave the ceilings to Michaelangelo."

A stream of obscenities followed him all the way down the hall. Doors began to open right and left as their inhabitants yelled at Yuffie to shut up or they'd confiscate her materia. Axel smiled. Everything was back to normal.

He was quickly disillusioned when he pushed open his own door. The room looked like an army had stampeded through it, done some nuclear testing, camped for a month, and then carried out a full-scale war. Reno stood in the middle of the chaos, grinning like an idiot.

"What the heck did you do to our room?" Axel waded through the mess until he reached the relative safety of his bed.

Reno waved his hand dismissively. "Just a little decorating, yo."

The carpet was covered in fake snow five inches deep. Merrily blinking lights were strung everywhere, throwing spots of color onto the giant red bows tied to the bed frames. Dominating a full half of the room was a scraggly pine tree, leaning crookedly from where its trunk was wedged between a pile of textbooks. Two stained cardboard boxes sat on the bathroom floor, spilling silver tinsel and various other decorations.

"And," Reno added, "you're just in time to help me decorate the tree." The Turk tossed the boxes onto Axel's bed and started rummaging through them. With a resigned sigh, the Nobody reached in and pulled out the first thing he saw.

"Reno?"

"Eh?"

"Um…what's this?"

Reno turned carefully around to look. "Oh, that. Elena decided to make ornaments for all of us a while back. You think mine's bad? You should have seen Tseng's. The expression on his face was the best thing I saw that year, yo!" Chuckling, the Turk resumed drowning the tree in tinsel.

Axel looked again at the thing in his hand; a ball of red fluff with green pipe cleaners wound around it and wiggly eyes hot-glued to various places. A battered tag attached with a gold ribbon read, _"To my favorite idiot. From 'Lena."_

Biting back a grin, the Nobody hung it on the nearest branch and plunged his hand back into the box. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

Two hours later, they were done. The tree had tipped over halfway through the decorating, and the wall separating their room from Sephiroth's was lying in pieces.

"We're going to have to fix that, yo," said Reno, peering past the branches at the rubble. "Or their stabbity tendencies are going to haunt us."

Axel pulled out a roll of duct tape and set to work. Reno, meanwhile, stood in the doorway with his hands plunked on his hips, looking at the tree through squinted eyes. He cocked his head. "Something's missing," he mused.

Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "The angel!" Reno had a brief mental picture of Sephiroth in a lacy dress, perched on the top branch with a harp in his hands. "Not the One-Winged Angel!" he muttered, banishing the thought with a shudder. The Turk searched through the boxes again, poked his head into the closet, looked in the shower, and even worked up enough courage to make a tentative foray beneath the bed. Still no angel.

By this time, Axel had managed to tape the wall back into place. He tossed the empty cardboard roll in the general direction of the garbage can, wincing when it hit Mr. Snufflebottom instead. Quickly, the Nobody scooped the elephant off the floor and made sure he was still in one piece.

"Genius!" Axel jumped as Reno catapulted himself from one bed to the other. The Turk whisked the elephant out of his roommate's arms and placed him carefully atop the tree, then scooted backwards to stand next to Axel. Mr. Snufflebottom looked down at them from where he was nestled in the branches. The lights turned his fuzz into a rainbow of colors and reflected from his single button eye.

"That works," said the Turk.

Axel nodded. In a strange sort of way, it did.

Just then, there came a knock on the door. Reno, who was closest, answered it.

"Would you two like to be part of a gift exchange?" Aerith asked, smiling at them. She held a notebook in one hand, pushing up her glasses with the other.

The two redheads looked at one another. "Sure," said Axel.

"Wonderful!" the Cetra said, pulling out a pencil and checking them off on her list. "I'll be back later so you can draw names."

"Sounds good, yo," said Reno. Aerith gave them both a nod and crossed the hallway to Cloud and Demyx's room.

He'd no sooner closed the door than someone else was knocking. Reno whipped it open. Yuffie barged past him.

"Hey, wait just a minute!" Reno sputtered, prying himself out of the doorframe.

The ninja was already rummaging through the closet. Various pieces of food, stuffing, sheets of paper, clothing, and manga went flying through the air behind her. The seemingly endless stream was battering away at Axel, who was trying to prevent anything from getting through and collapsing the tree yet again.

Reno, who was sincerely irritated by this point, marched over to Yuffie and picked her up by the belt loop, smacking her hands when she tried to pocket one of the Playstation controllers.

"Now," he said. "I'm going to be very calm and collected when I ask you one question."

Yuffie rolled her eyes.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF JENOVA ARE YOU DOING POKING THROUGH OUR FRAKKING CLOSET, YOU KLEPTOMANICAC CRETIN?!"

The ninja, swinging back and forth from where she hung in the air, looked mildly confused and a lot annoyed.

Axel winced. He really had to tell Reno that reading the dictionary was not the best way to discover new insults.

Finally, Yuffie consented to answer. "Looking for marshmallows."

"WHAT KIND OF ANSWER IS – marshmallows? What do you need marshmallows for, yo?" The abruptness with which Reno switched moods made Axel wonder yet again about the Turk's questionable sanity.

"Demyx's making hot cocoa," said Yuffie.

"Ah," said Reno. And then, to the surprise of everyone in the room, he pulled a large bag of tiny white marshmallows from somewhere and handed it to her. The three stood in stunned silence for a long minute.

Axel recovered first. "Time to storm Demi's room, then."

Yuffie giggled and bounced out the door with the hard-fought marshmallows. "Bring a cup with you if you want some," her voice floated back.

"Let's go, Reno," said Axel.

"Go ahead, yo. I'm still in shock."

"Well, then a little hot chocolate should clear your head." Axel grabbed two moderately clean plastic cups and forcibly dragged Reno across the hallway.

x-x-x

The tiny dorm room was quite full by the time the redheaded Nobody managed to prop his roommate up against the door. Cloud was stirring the bubbling pot of cocoa resting on the radiator. Aerith plugged her iPod into Demyx's amplifier and music filled the room. Mercifully, she was too busy talking to sing along. Even Xaldin and Sephiroth had come, although Axel was pretty sure it wasn't because they wanted to be there.

Demyx could barely be heard above the noise when he shouted, "Cocoa's ready!" Even still, there was a mad rush towards the pot. Cloud snatched it up before it got knocked over, silently plucking the bag of marshmallows from Yuffie's hands, and dumping the contents into the brown liquid.

"_Now_ you can have some," he said, picking up a water-spotted ladle. Demyx's handiwork, no doubt.

Axel carried a full cup to where he'd left Reno. The Turk had finally gotten over his unexplained act of Christmas spirit, and gladly took the proffered cocoa. He took a sip and nearly dumped the rest all over himself.

"Hot!" he spluttered, his face turning a shade of red to rival his hair.

"Sorry," said Axel. "I must have kept it a little too warm on the way over here."

Reno glared at him over the rim of his cup. Now that it had been mentioned, he could smell smoke.

"WATER!" All of a sudden, the two redheads were sopping wet as a huge wave of water splashed over them.

"Demyx!" Axel yelled, waving his arms wildly and stumbling around trying to clear his hair from his face. "There's no fire!"

"Oops." The other Nobody let the wave die down to a trickle and gave them a sheepish grin. "Thought I smelled smoke."

Aerith looked at her watch. "It's getting a bit late, anyway. We've got a busy couple of days ahead. But while we're all here, we might as well draw names for the gift exchange."

She pulled several slips of paper out of her jacket pocket and appropriated an empty cup to put them in. Everyone picked a name before dispersing to their own rooms for the night. "And remember," the Cetra called, "it's to be kept a _secret_!"

x-x-x

The week before Christmas vacation began was filled with suspense and mystery. The usual chatter between rooms was suspended as their occupants went shopping or surreptitiously wrapped gifts. It was decided that, since Reno and Axel were the only ones with a tree in their room, the gift exchange would be held there. And, as Xaldin rather tartly pointed out, they could always knock down the wall for more room.

Finally, Christmas Eve arrived. Reno, who hadn't gotten a present for Sephiroth yet, found himself faced with empty store shelves and harried-looking parents trying to calm their screaming children. Everyone else was back in the common room of the residence, watching Star Wars and rehashing the exams.

The Turk paced back and forth, wondering what on earth to get for someone who's only interests were killing people and plotting ways to kill people. He was about to give up when he spotted a thick black and silver notebook with the kanji for "nikumu" on the cover. With no other options, Reno decided to buy it. After all, "hate" pretty well described Sephiroth's view of life. He handed a twenty-dollar bill to the gum-smacking cashier and hurried to catch the bus back to the residence.

Reno had barely walked in the door when he remembered that he'd forgotten to buy wrapping paper. He shrugged and pelted up the stairs, stopping by Yuffie's room to acquire some of her leftover paper. It was red, with little dancing reindeer printed all over it. The Turk grimaced, but he had nothing else. It would have to do.

In his own room, Reno ripped off several pieces of duct tape and attempted to stick the several tiny pieces of wrapping paper together. After ten minutes, he only had one corner of the notebook wrapped. Reno sighed. Finally, he wrapped the rest in old, scribbled-upon looseleaf paper from his binder and applied ridiculous amounts of tape to keep it from falling apart.

"He'll need Masamune to open this, yo," Reno muttered as he tossed it under the tree with the other gifts.

With a wearied sigh, he fell onto the bed, belatedly remembering to unplug the Christmas lights. The Turk had experienced enough fires for a lifetime and had no wish to purposefully cause another. Flicking off the desk lamp, Reno shuffled to the bed again, shedding his hoodie and jeans as he did so. The cold air hit his boxer-clad legs, and he scrambled beneath the blankets.

Two minutes later, Reno got up again and went to the other side of the room.

Within the next minute, he was snuggled comfortably under the comforter with Mr. Snufflebottom.

Thirty seconds later, when Axel came upstairs, Reno was sound asleep.

x-x-x

Axel was dreaming of purple elephants when the alarm went off the next morning. With a grimace, he slapped the Snooze button and chucked a pillow at Reno. The projectile hit the Turk dead-on, and the old combat reflexes had sent a nearby glass of water flying back at Axel before Reno completely woke up.

The Nobody rubbed his head where the glass had hit him. "Merry Christmas to you, too," he said, his grin taking any possible sting out of the words.

"Sorry, yo," said Reno. "Old habits die hard." He gently placed Mr. Snufflebottom back on top of the tree.

Axel shoved his feet into a pair of fuzzy red socks, while Reno struggled to scrape his hair into a ponytail. Finally, he gave up and the two redheads went tearing down the hall, banging on doors and laughing. The other residents staggered out in various states of consciousness, rubbing sleep-bleary eyes and shrugging into robes and slippers.

"Everybody to the room of insanity. It's time to open presents!" Aerith had a cup of coffee in her hand and, aside from the occasional twitch, seemed to be the only other person who was mostly awake.

Eventually, they were all arrayed in a loose semi-circle around the room. Aerith conscripted Yuffie to pass out the presents, and soon everyone had one in their lap.

"All right," said the Cetra. "Cloud, you can start."

The blond complied, carefully ripping the paper and pulling out a wooly knitted scarf. He gave Yuffie a grateful smile, and she thumped him on the back with a delighted smile.

Demyx was next. His package yielded a stack of sheet music from Aerith.

Then Yuffie opened hers, jumping up and punching a fist in the air when she saw the small box of Bernard Callibaut chocolates. Axel smiled to himself.

Sephiroth didn't say anything when he finally got the duct tape off his present, but the fact that he refrained from immediately tearing it into shreds suggested that he was pleased.

Upon opening his present, Axel discovered a slightly melted bucket of sea-salt ice cream and cinnamon-scented candles. He immediately pried the lid off the ice cream and thanked Xaldin with a plastic cup full of the blue treat.

Aerith was delighted to find an iTunes gift card in the bottom of her box. Cloud blushed fiercely when she engulfed him in an enormous hug.

Then Xaldin opened his package and was quite pleased to receive a box of black fabric dye and a whetstone from Sephiroth.

Reno, when it was finally his turn, wasted no time at all in tearing the paper off his gift. Nestled in the tissue paper was a pair of purple elephant slippers. The Turk slipped them on his feet with something akin to reverence and high-fived Demyx.

Finally, all the wrapping paper was lying in crumpled heaps on the floor and the room was filled with contented chatter. Aerith raised her voice to be heard over the general chaos.

"Remember, turkey supper tonight at 6! And Cloud has a toboggan, if anyone wants to go down to the hill in city center this afternoon." This idea was met with enthusiastic cheers, and there was a mad scramble to the various rooms for coats, toques, and mittens.

x-x-x

Reno trotted up the stairs to the residence building later that afternoon, cheeks flushed red from the cold. Shifting his grip on the pie he'd bought to bring to supper that evening, he kicked the door with his foot and slipped through.

It was unnaturally quiet as he huffed and puffed up to the tenth floor. _Everyone's elsewhere,_ he thought, _getting food or trying to bargain with that grumpy janitor for a table big enough to fit us all._

By this time, the Turk had reached the room. Even outside the door, Reno could smell smoke. With a sinking feeling, he turned the knob and entered.

Axel turned around, hearing him come in. The Nobody's face was bright red, and he had flakes of soot in his hair. Wisps of smoke were wafting up from his gloves and emitting in clouds from…

"What _is _that sitting on the desk, yo?" Reno asked, depositing the pie on the bed and poking the thing with a finger.

"It was a turkey about two minutes ago."

"Before you torched it."

"You could say that."

Reno tried to keep a stern face, but he failed miserably. Despite his ban on fire in the room, the sight of Axel standing over a burnt turkey with an apron tied around his waist was too funny to ignore.

"Guess we'll be eating genuine fire-blackened turkey tonight, yo," said Reno. "Good thing we've got dessert." He flourished the pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, his gesture was a bit too grandiose and it hit the wall, popping the lid off and landing the unfortunate dessert facedown on the carpet.

Axel waited a whole half-second before busting a gut. Reno, who was laughing so hard that he couldn't walk straight, did his best to scrape what remained of the pie back into the tin. The results were pitiful.

"You were saying something about dessert?" quipped Axel.

"All right, all right," said Reno, setting the pie down by the still-smoking turkey. "So we fail with food in general."

"Except for eating it, of course," Axel said absentmindedly, looking at his watch. "It's 5:53. We should head down to the common room, I suppose." The Nobody turned to open the door, but Reno stopped him.

"Uh, Axel?" All hilarity forgotten, the Turk was shuffling from one foot to the other, holding his hands behind his back and looking distinctly uncomfortable. Axel raised his eyebrows in an unspoken gesture to continue. Finally, Reno brought out a smallish box wrapped in newspapers and presented it to his roommate with a slightly embarrassed expression.

Axel took it, not quite sure what to expect.

"I figured I'd get you something for Christmas. You know, 'cause you're my roommate, yo." Reno stuffed his hands into his pockets.

The Nobody finally managed to pry the remainder of the duct tape off the paper, revealing a black velvet box. He opened it carefully. Nestled inside was a heart, made of delicate translucent glass that exactly matched the color of Axel's hair.

"It's…" He couldn't finish.

"A heart," said Reno, almost gently. "Because you didn't have one. And now you do."

Axel brushed at his eyes, grinning shakily at the Turk. "Thanks." He turned away momentarily. When he faced Reno again, there was a box in his hands. "For you," he said, presenting it to Reno.

The Turk accepted it, noticing the red paper with reindeer dancing on it. Apparently Axel had also been forced to raid Yuffie's room. He ripped off the wrapping and opened the package. Inside were two video games for the Playstation. Reno flipped them over and read the titles: _Final Fantasy VII_ and _Kingdom Hearts II._

"I also decided to forget about all that money you owe me," said Axel. "But if you want to buy me a new Gundam Seed poster, by all means, go ahead."

Reno grinned and carefully set his present down on the desk next to Axel's. Scooping up the squashed pie, he indicated the turkey, which had finally stopped smoking.

"Time to see what everyone else thinks of our cooking skills," he said.

Together, they bounded down the stairs to the common room, toward the smell of food and shouts of "Merry Christmas!"


End file.
